


give wings to a stone

by angelatflightrisk



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: AU where when Khaji attaches to jaimes spine he overrides instead of living alongside, Jaime is dead, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, essentially, everyone is confused, khaji-centric, not your average bluepulse, oh my
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-04-27 22:46:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14435769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelatflightrisk/pseuds/angelatflightrisk
Summary: Jaime Reyes was, and then he wasn’t. Khaji Da wasn’t, and then he was.





	1. exopsition.

**Author's Note:**

> this first chapter is exposition! an introduction to this au. which is why it isnt long, cause expositions arent terribly interesting. the next chapter will take place a few months down the road.  
> bart will show up pretty quickly  
> unlike reach!impulse, this won't be all sad times i promise ahsdfkjj

He was sixteen. Warm features, from the soft flush of his skin to the gentle mess of his dark hair. His hair was always a bit of a mess, just a little. He tried his best to keep it neat, but when he would get frustrated in class, or when he was nervous, or when he was thinking, he had a habit of running his hand back through his hair, effectively turning the straight-back style into the soft, haphazard curls he tried so hard to calm.

His name was Jaime Reyes, and once, he was alive. He was a human boy, as normal and as typical and as sweet as human boys come.

Khaji Da knew plenty about him, perhaps more than one should know about someone they never had the chance to meet. A stranger in every sense of the word. Khaji Da remembered things about him-- leftovers, fragments left behind from the body and mind Khaji Da took from him. He remembered his name, the warm brown of his mother’s eyes, the sweet sound of his friend’s laughter. He remembered his ambitions, his goals in life, his feelings and his accomplishments.

“I know it’s almost curfew, mom--”

Khaji Da had never met Jaime Reyes.

“--I’m practically home.”

If he was by himself long enough, sometimes he thought he could feel him. His ghost, what he left behind. The way his voice moved, the slow movement of his hand towards an alien device he knew nothing of, his breath mingling with consequences he knew nothing about, consequences he gave himself willingly and blindly to.

“I’ll be there soon.  _ Hasta pronto _ .”

Khaji Da never met Jaime Reyes. He had no memories prior to taking the boy’s life. He hadn’t taken it willingly, hadn’t had any choice in the matter. It was an involuntary and unavoidable instinct of the technology, and Jaime Reyes gave himself to that instinct. He hadn’t the slightest idea, and neither did Khaji Da. Neither of them, until it was too late to consider it.

Jaime Reyes was, and then he wasn’t. Khaji Da wasn’t, and then he was.

This life was Khaji Da’s, now. He had possessed the human, and now his task, his objective-- return to the Reach, hive mind, no control. Soldier, come home.

But it was wrong. It was all wrong. There was no hive. There was no mind but his own and the lingering ghost of Jaime Reyes. There was no mode. There were emotions. There was guilt, horror, there was fear, there was the knowledge that he was very lost and very alone on a planet he had nothing to do with, separated from the only thing that ever gave him a purpose.

Warm brown eyes-- Jaime Reyes’s eyes-- turned up to the night sky. Alone on an alien planet in the body of a human boy that he was responsible for the death of, left alone and clueless to live his life for him.

For a moment, he simply stared, simply took a moment to understand the reality of this. Then, he rose. And quietly, he began to the Reyes’s home.


	2. protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s grown accustomed to answering to that name.

“Jaime!”

Khaji Da-- the new placeholder of that name,  _ Jaime Reyes _ . He’s grown accustomed to answering to that name.

His gaze turned over his shoulder easily, meeting the eyes of the boy who called his friend’s name. His name was Paco. He was one out of two of Jaime Reyes’s best friends. He quickly fell into step besides Khaji Da, a grin on his face, lopsided, goofy. Khaji Da regarded him, quietly. His jaw set, trying to decipher how to form his words in a way that resembled normal, in a way that resembled teenage boy, in a way that resembled Jaime Reyes.

“Paco.”

His chin tilted up to meet the significantly taller boy’s eyes, and the human boy smiled back.

Khaji Da knew he was not Jaime Reyes, and he knew that did not go unnoticed. Jaime Reyes was sweet, charismatic, full of light and life and he shone in a way that was as captivating as it was human. Khaji Da could not be Jaime Reyes, not if he dedicated his life to it.

To attempt a smile that might resemble Jaime Reyes felt stupid.

The boy smiled, a sort of nervous, off-set smile. He couldn’t quite hold Khaji’s gaze-- unsurprising. He held nothing of Jaime’s warmth in his eyes. He’d tried to find it. To mimic it. It had died with Jaime.

His loved ones had spent these last months mourning Jaime in a way they didn’t even understand.

“Jaime, we, uh… We’ve been real worried.”

“Worried?”

“Yeah. You’re-- you’re just, y’know. So off.”

“Off?”

“--Just, is there anything we can do? To help--?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Hey, Jaim--”

“I have to go. Goodbye.”

So almost every interaction had gone for nine months. Khaji Da disappeared into an empty classroom that was not his, and he left through the window.

 

Night was the only time when Khaji Da was himself, whoever  _ himself  _ was.

The only time he was even a fraction of who he really was, when he was not Jaime Reyes, when he was himself.

Night.

He would help Jaime’s mother wash dishes from dinner, silently. He would ascend the stairs, silently. He would enter his room, close the door, let the technology that was so familiar-- the only familiar thing to him on this forsaken planet-- envelop his form, and he’d leave through the window.

He didn’t do much, not really. Not much.

Most nights he flew higher than anyone could see him, regarding the stars, the patterns of them, the constellations and their positions. He would try to piece together where in the infinite expanse of the universe he was, based on those stars. But at the end of every night he was still here. He was still on Earth, he was still alone, and he was still where he was when this body took its first breath as Khaji Da.

For months, it was simply that. Flying through clouds and trying to remember the galaxies and the Reach and who he had been before this body, before this planet. Eventually he supposed the Earth’s gravity finally managed to keep him grounded, to an extent. He supposed his human body felt inclined to connect with the Earth and its man-made things, because he found himself in that armor of the Reach’s invention sitting on rooftops in the night, regarding the stars from the city.

And after a few months of that, his gaze shifted. From the sky to the ground. He tried to decipher this planet, its happenings. He watched people. Mothers, Fathers. Sisters. Friends. Humans. Strangers. Enigmas. All of them, enigmas. These humans, these children of Earth. And Khaji Da, the only child of the universe, lost in a sea of aliens.

He never intended to be involved.

He knew of Earth’s heroes-- their Justice League. He was not one of them, although perhaps he had the potential to be. He didn’t see the purpose, maybe. What was it about humans that made them feel the need to go to such extents to protect each other? It was different with the Reach-- there was no looking out for each other, because nobody was _other_. There was only the Reach. Everyone was your brother, but they were more than that. The Reach was a hive, and a hive mind, with a purpose and a path and a reason.

Without those things, he found humanity difficult to grasp.

It was later than he was usually out. His eyes followed the paths of seldom passing cars, glazed with boredom and with directionless thought.

Nobody was out. It was as quiet of a night as it could possibly get.

A door opened across the street.

A girl stepped out into the night. She couldn’t have been older than Khaji Da’s body-- her hair was wild, red, pulled up in a mess on her head. Khaji Da didn’t notice at first, but when he did it startled him to alertness-- she was in a panic. A sound left her throat, a sound like a cry, like a sound you make just to know you can still make sound. And she ran.

She ran fast, down the street and into an alley and she did not stop running.

The reason was no mystery, as Khaji Da continued to watch. A man tore out of the house after her, yelling, barbaric and violent and senseless as he pursued her.

He was older than her. Stronger, faster. And he had a weapon. If he caught her, she’d be in trouble.

Khaji Da didn’t notice he had risen to his feet until he’d already spread his wings.

 

“Is there a problem?”

A startled sound left her throat, and he could see her wild hair whip over his shoulder as she tried to see who’d spoken. The man stiffened, and Khaji Da heard him whisper a curse before he turned around. One hand gripped her wrist, her wrist covered in galaxies of purple and blue and green, the same galaxies splattering what little of her chest he could see, the skin under her eye.

His other hand was behind his back.

There was a smile on his face when he turned around, one doubtlessly prepared to tell him lies. It froze when he’d fully turned-- surprised by the armor, taken aback. Khaji Da simply stared back at him, the golden gaze of the mask hiding nothing.

“Is there a problem?”

“I-- Ah, ar’you with the Jus’ice League?”

Drunk. He gripped her wrist tighter, and she winced, her eyes drawn to the concrete. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Her feet bled against the concrete.

“No,” Khaji Da answered honestly, “Is there a problem?”

“Lis’n, buddy, this is my daughter. Ain’t no problem. Y’know girls…”

A silence drew on. The man tugged on her wrist, and a small sound left her throat before she frantically added, “Y-yes. There’s no problem.”

“See? No problem. So mind y’business.”

Khaji Da wasted no more time regarding the man, turning his gaze to the girl, clearly, evenly, “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine--”

“You’re hurt. It was not a question.”

She was silent, her gaze turned down. A quick scan of her vitals confirmed his analysis, if it wasn't immediately evident.

“Your rib is broken. You need to go to the hospital.”

Alarm flashed bright and clear across her face, as well as the man’s.

“How did you--”

“I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

He paused, watching her face, before he turned his attention to the man, presumably her father, “I’m going to take her to the hospital.”

“She don’t need a fuckin’ hospital,” The man became hostile in his voice as well as his actions quickly, quicker than anything, his other hand flashing from behind him and revealing a knife, his teeth showing, “Get out of here or I’ll slit your--”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence. Khaji Da didn’t hesitate. His armor quickly shifted and stapled the man safely, securely, and harshly to the brick wall, knocking him unconscious on impact. The girl screamed, startled, stumbling back against the wall behind her in a renewed panic.

Khaji Da was immediately sorry. He held his hands out, trying to convey he meant this girl no harm.

“It’s okay," His voice held a tender quality he didn't know he had in him, "I won’t hurt you."

Her rapid breathing eventually slowed, and she eventually calmed, looking back at him.

“Okay?” He asked after some silence.

She nodded.  “Okay.”

“Did he do that to you?”

She stiffened for a moment before nodding, silent, her gaze falling again to the concrete where her blood mingled with the dirt. Khaji took a moment, considering what to say.

“If it’s alright, I’d like to take you to the hospital now. You need medical assistance.”

“Who are you?” She asked, breathless.

He didn’t answer her, he didn’t know how. He opened his arms, and after some hesitation she obliged, stepping forward as he spread his wings and set a route for the hospital.

It wasn’t until he’d set her on the curb outside that he looked into her green eyes and saw something profound, something real and human and worth protecting. He knew he would never see her again, and he knew there were humans on every inch of this planet exactly like her.

“Blue Beetle.”

“What?”

“I’m Blue Beetle.”

She looked at him, and she understood. Khaji Da let her look, and then his wings spread, and he started back home. He had school in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE FOR COMMENTS AND MY TUMBLR IS CRASHTACULAR


	3. documentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are my son,” She insisted, sitting next to him on the counter, “I feel like I hardly know you lately.”

Plenty of things had changed in Khaji Da.

That was a bit of a mistruth-- when it came to Khaji Da, not much changed at all. He wasn’t so much changing through these months in this body as he was learning who he was, discovering himself.

From an inside perspective, everything in Khaji Da was starting to come to light, was starting to fall into place, was starting to feel like a puzzle that perhaps wasn’t as unsolvable as it first seemed.

From an outside perspective, however, it seemed to the world like Jaime Reyes had ceased to be himself.

“Jaime,  _ mijo _ ,” Bianca Reyes’s warm voice from behind him. He didn’t look up, he didn’t need to. He knew it was her, and that was all. He nodded-- a small, curt motion.

“ _ Hola _ ,  _ mama _ .”

“What is that?”

He did look up that time, to meet her eyes and then follow her gaze to where it rested, on his plate on the kitchen counter.

On this plate was not abnormal, was the same sort of thing Khaji Da always ate, always prefered. Simple and straightforward and ideal to sustain a healthy human form.

“Well,” he started, lifting his fork from the plate and gesturing at the food, “Salad. With--”

“Jaime,” She cut him off. She was used to his explanations of his food, at this point. Khaji Da figured she didn’t particularly want to hear about the particulars of the calories and the nutritional value and the protein source, again.

“Jaime, we’re going to make dinner.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t you eat that?”

The two of them had this conversation maybe every week, and nine months into Khaji Da inhabiting her house, inhabiting her son’s body, she’d finally stopped insisting he eat anything not made himself.

He supposed she realized she couldn’t force him to eat anything, not really.

Human eating habits, typical ones, were virtually repulsive. Humans will eat just to eat. Almost all of them. Sustaining themselves on garbage and toxins.

“No thank you.”

She sighed, an unhappy sound. She turned from him and continued down the hall.

His heart ached for her, for her and for everyone else Jaime Reyes had cherished. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing could be changed. Bianca Reyes could not have her son back, and Khaji Da was still here.

With his atypical eating habits, his distance, and everything else that separated him from the Earth.

“Jaime,” Bianca called, and Khaji swallowed a sigh.

“Mama, I can start timing it differently,” He offered, although he had offered before, “So even if I’m not  _ eating  _ with you, I’m still--”

“ _ Mijo _ , come in here.”

He stopped his sentence where it lay in his mouth, processing that for a moment. And then he rose, crossing into the living room, following the woman’s voice.

“Mama?”

She wasn’t watching him. Her eyes were trained on the television, watching the news story on the screen. Khaji followed her gaze, and carefully he sat down beside her.

“--superpowered villain named Neutron terrorized the streets of Central City. Nobody was killed, and the few injured are in good hands.

This particular catastrophe was stopped by the Flash himself, alongside his protege, Kid Flash. And, as we’ve recently discovered… a third speedster.”

The shot cut to a different reporter, standing next to a masked man in red, standing proudly, a bonafide Justice League hero. Beside him, a younger man in yellow and red, both with lightning bolts across their chests.

“Flash, we understand that you had extra help with this situation, is that true?”

“Yes, it is. He isn’t here right now, he--”

A flash of red and white across the screen, and more quickly than Khaji Da could blink there was a skinny, small-set boy with wild auburn hair and freckles for days across his face, standing next to the pair. He was smiling, wide, a red-gloved hand reaching up and taking hold of the younger guy’s arm.

“KF,  _ KF _ , did I tell you about how I--”

“Impulse,” The yellow-clad hero protested, turning on the younger and angling him away from the camera, “I thought we told you to go hom--”

The kid darted underneath the man’s arm, looking at the reporter and flashing a smile, carefree and bright. He radiated energy, his fingers blurring with constant uncontained motion. She couldn’t help the laugh, angling towards him.

“Are you the mysterious third speedster, young man?”

“Absolutely!” He beamed, “I’m Impulse!”

“Impulse, huh?”

“Well, it’s better than  _ Baby Flash _ , which was option number two.”

“ _ Okay _ , Imp, let’s get you home.”

“Wait!” The woman insisted, “One more question-- can we expect you to join the young justice team? With Robin, Superboy?”

“Of course!” The boy answered triumphantly. His smile was bright as the sun as he looked in the camera, “I already have!”

The segment shut off. Khaji Da went back to the kitchen.

 

“Are you hurt?”

“No--”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes. I’m okay. I’m okay. Thank you.”

He nodded, a small, curt motion. He scanned the man again, just to be certain that he really was okay, before he took a step back.

“The police are on the way. They will be here soon. You are safe now.”

The man didn’t have a chance to thank Khaji Da again before his wings were spread and the crisp night air was against his face again.

This was what his nights had turned into. Protection, watching over this city like a guardian, saving what he could and doing what good he had in him. It was a purpose, and for once in his infinite existence-- it was a good purpose.

And then, something new.

In the corner of his vision, a blur of red and white. His gaze followed the movement, instinctively.

Standing on the roof across from him, his hand braced on the ledge of the building, a small-set teenaged boy in red and white. He was there for only an instant, and then again he was gone.

 

Khaji Da heard her coming, but he didn’t look up until he heard the confrontational sound of the file slapping against the tile of the counter. His eyes turned up then, meeting the firey gaze of Bianca Reyes.

Jaime Reyes would have felt fear at this encounter. This was his mother.

“What is it, mama?”

“What is _this_ , Jaime?”

Khaji Da took another moment to hold the woman’s gaze before he gingerly opened the file. Inside, papers. On top, a report card. His report card.

“My report card?”

“Read it.”

He did.

“Chemistry, first block, 98. Calculus, second block, 99. AP US History, 96. Healthcare science, 100.”

He was quiet for a moment before looking back up.

“...What’s the matter?”

“Your grades are amazing.”

A pause,  “...You’re angry?”

“Read the rest, Jaime.”

He did.

An in depth report of his extensive history of skipping classes through empty classroom windows, at least four times a week, outraged paragraphs from teachers and counselors and the principal.

Testimonies of his classmates, referring to him as distant, distracted, uninterested.

This he did not read out loud.

“Your grades have never been this good. Not in your life.”

He did not look at her. He did not answer at all, so she continued.

“You skip class so frequently your school wants to suspend you, and your grades are the best in the school. Your teachers have been trying to catch you cheating, and you never do. They’ve been watching for weeks. It’s unexplainable. It’s unnatural.  _ Mijo _ , when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, mama.”

“You are my son,” She insisted, sitting next to him on the counter, “I feel like I hardly know you lately.”

A silence he didn’t know how to fill, he wasn’t sure he would ever know how to fill.

“Jaime, please.”

“I have to go.”

Behind him, he heard her protests, her frantic voice as she told him he would not be leaving this house. And then, he left the house.

 

He had hardly landed on the concrete of the alley, not fifteen minutes after the fallout with Bianca Reyes.

The affair was fresh in his mind when a flash of red and white promptly turned the corner ahead of him and swept his feet from under him, his head connecting harshly with the concrete beneath.


	4. introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bartholomew Henry Allen II. “Bart Allen”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LATE UPDATE IS LATE IM SO SORRY. few living things is next !!

“And in 1800--”

“I already know this. Why am I here?”

It caused the man to pause, nervous brown eyes flickering back up to the boy in front of him. His fingers twitched over the paper he held, his throat clearing itself.

“Well, your teachers are concerned--”

“With what?” Khaji Da stifled a sigh, his eyes falling from the man onto the pen in his own hand, “My grades are better than anyone else’s. If there is a problem to be found in my absence, the solution is not to be found in tutoring.”

“Well… I think they--”

“They want to be sure I’m not cheating,” Khaji Da affirmed, “That I really know the information? That I can give it to you in these sessions?”

“Well… um, yes.”

Khaji Da found his mind drifting as the tutor continued with his session, effortlessly supplying answers while he took the time to think about something else entirely.

His head had connected with the concrete, his feet having been swept swiftly from under him. Quickly, remarkably so. An alarm in his system alerted him of metahuman activity, and then the flash of lightning was gone.

Khaji Da was back on his feet as quickly as possible, but even that was too slow. Golden eyes scanning the dark, empty alley, he was met with nothing. With no one. Everything was clear, and he was alone.

The only change from before the lightning had arrived was a note-- Khaji Da had stepped forward, squinting in the dark, his vision quickly turning to nighvision, gold.

His fingers had curled around the paper, pulling it off of the brick wall to read it. Scribbled in black marker, in bold letters, a simple message-- “I know about you.”

An ominous message, to say the least. 

Khaji Da had little to no trouble investigating, after that. He was almost glad to have something to do, almost instantly glad. Some purpose. It was almost refreshing. Some relationship with a human person that was his own and not a ghost of Jaime Reyes's past.

The flash of lightning indicated a speedster, and the white and red left nobody but Impulse. He knew that at a first glance, even before he sat in the alley with his back to the brick wall, holding the paper in his hand and replaying his own vision against the golden lenses.

His feet touch the concrete. Lightning surrounds him. He falls, and all he can see are the stars. Rewind. The replay slows. This time he can make out the figure of a small-set teenage boy. Rewind. The replay slows dramatically, and freezes the boy in place.

His name, Impulse, proves to be fitting. He is in civilian clothes, and with the whiplash wind of the night air pulling those auburn curls back, his freckled face is clear as day in the screenshot.

Khaji Da’s tutor is droning on when there is a beep behind Khaji Da’s eyes, and it makes him jump. The man throws him an odd look, and Khaji Da ignores it, his head tilting down just slightly to examine the golden code thrown across his screen. Facial recognition has been working nonstop ever since he’d caught the screenshot, and it seems to finally have an answer.

He is not in any mainstream database, only on the Justice League’s private database, which Khaji Da finds... odd. Looking through the very undetailed report, Khaji Da finds that it’s as if the boy didn’t exist until a few months ago-- February 28th. He wonders if the boy was kept hidden away, but that doesn’t explain much. More questions are risen than answers, really.

Continuing, images of the boy’s smiling face appear on the screen. Bright eyes appear gold on Khaji’s screen, everything on his screen a shade of gold. Eventually he removes his gaze from them, and sees that his name is Bartholomew Henry Allen II. “Bart Allen”.

“Jaime--”

“Abolitionists.”

He is the grandson of Bartholomew Henry Allen the first, which raises even more unanswered and unanswerable questions. Upon further investigation, the senior of the pair is a little over twenty, the Flash himself. A fifteen year old boy directly two generations removed from a twenty year old? Impossible, to say the least. And there is a gap in the middle-- Senior and his wife, Iris West-Allen, don’t even have children.

Of all the many enigmas Khaji Da has found in humanity, this Bartholomew is by far the most eluding.

“Jaime?”

“One moment.”

“Are you oka--?”

“I’m busy. Give me a moment.”

He lives with his “honorary great-grandparents”, Jay and Joan Garrick. He finds their address, and that is all he needs.

The golden code flickers from his vision, and he turns a warm brown gaze back up to the man across from him, who is looking at him with bewilderment in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling very well. I’ll be fine. Where were we?”

 

It is nighttime. Khaji Da sits in the branches of a tree, blue and black metallic armor wrapped securely around his human form, golden gaze trained on a window a reasonable distance from him, zoomed in and clear as day.

The door opens, and a boy with auburn curls and a t-shirt that is too big for him steps into the room. Bartholomew. He is smiling, a little reckless as he leans on the door and zips to a side of his room in a flash of lightning. He is out of sight for a moment, and then he comes to the edge of his bed. He stills, his gaze falling on his bedding. A scan of his hormones and an acceleration of his already quick heartbeat implies anxiety as he processes the sight. Khaji Da guesses that it is among one of the slowest things he’s ever done when he gingerly picks up the envelope. He holds it up to the light, squinting inside of it, before he removes the note from inside it.

Khaji Da zooms in a fraction more, the lens blurring momentarily before adjusting to the boy’s features.

He stares at the letter, the letter Khaji Da spent all afternoon writing. It explains, to a degree, what he’s been doing here on Earth. What he knows, what he’s lived. How he is not a part of the Reach, not anymore. How he isn’t quite human either.

He explains that he is lonely, and that Bartholomew is the first to know this.

He explains that Bartholomew is quite the enigma himself, and explains everything he knows about him. It isn’t much. And he asks-- If the human boy knows about Khaji Da, Khaji Da would like to know about him.

He explains that he means the boy no harm.

The boy’s face flushes as he looks at the oceans of writing, and for a moment Khaji Da assumes it is because he is surprised by the contents, or sheer surprise at the letter’s existence. Then he realizes Bart’s eyes are not moving along the paper, along the lines. His brain is not deciphering the letters and stringing them into language.

And suddenly there is another fact that raises more questions than answers.

He rises from the branches, his wings embracing the cold night air. He lands silently on the human boy’s windowsill, his feet gently touching the carpet.

The boy does not look up from the paper, seemingly entranced, flustered. Khaji Da feels a sort of heat rise to his own cheeks as he lets the armor fall away.

“You can’t read, can you?”

His head snaps up, curls bouncing around pale, freckled skin. A flash of green from Bartholomew's big eyes crosses the room to Khaji Da’s gaze.

Khaji Da isn’t known to make miscalculations, but as he is thrown from the window in a flash of white and red lightning, in a tattered red sneaker connecting with his chest-- as he hits the ground and the wind leaves his lungs, he is certain that he has just made one.


	5. revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I get off of you, do you promise not to attack me?”

Khaji Da has scarcely landed on the hard ground before that flash of lightning returns. He is struck again almost before he can process the sound leaving his throat, the taste of blood in his mouth as he sits up straight. The pain is sharp, and real. This is so different than anything he’s experienced on Earth. This is so fast and bewildering, so alarming, so overwhelming.

“Wait--” The word hasn’t yet dissipated into the cold night air, hasn't had time, before that lightning returns and he is struck again. The lightning crashes into his ribs, and the gasp that follows is beyond his control, the pain shooting through him, cold, like ice, like metal.

His armor finally wraps back around him, but it is too late. He cradles his broken rib with a shaking hand, his mind buzzing.

His head turns towards the sound of the unnatural lightning crackling, and he stands, stumbling to his feet, the wings coming from his back and carrying him surely towards the direction of the light. Swiftly, but not too fast. Not fast enough.

Bartholomew is so incredibly fast, and he is nowhere to be found.

He lands after a while, gingerly, bracing himself on a tree. His vision swims as he lets the armor fall from his face, as he reaches up to touch his bloodied lip, confused, dazed, lost.

After only another dizzy moment, he is thrown with his back against the ground and a small weight sitting on his hips, his hands pinned. The sharp pain this harsh motion causes his rib is intense, even hearing his own voice break when he cries out into the night air.

“How did you find me?” The boy's voice is nothing like what it was on the television. It is harsh and cold, somehow holding the same soft boyishness. He sounds nothing like that ray of sunshine. His voice bleeds with the agony of someone with a dark, sinister past. And he is so young.

The questions outweigh the answers so severely.

“I--”

“Tell me how you found me, and tell me what your letter said. I know who you are, and I know who you’re with.”

“No you don’t!”

The speedster's pale hand moves from Khaji Da’s wrist to his chest, and his weight shifts from his hips to this hand. Khaji Da’s vision goes white all at once, and he hears that striking voice shouting over Khaji Da’s pain.

“How did you find me?”

“The night in the alley--” Khaji Da gasps, desperately, writhing, “I ran facial recognition on a screenshot. I hacked Justice League files to get information on you. None of it makes any sense. I got your address and wrote you everything I know.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t want to hurt you,” Khaji Da’s voice contains more raw organic feeling than he’s ever felt. The human boy lays more on him, on his injury, and finally his instinct to resist outweighs his desire not to hurt the boy. All in an instant, he grabs Bartholomew by his waist and throws him to the ground. A sound of surprise leaves the boy’s throat, and Khaji Da acts quickly.

He pins him to the ground by his hips, by sitting on him. And quickly, before the speedster can phase through him, he presses his fingers to the boy’s neck and injects him with meta blocker. Bartholomew gasps, his eyes blowing wide, and he stills underneath him all at once. Khaji Da holds his own rib, breathing, blinking.

“I am not with the Reach,” He says, clearly. The human blinks, slowly, adjusting to the temporary loss of his powers, those big green eyes coming up to meet Khaji Da’s. He has resistance in his eyes, those freckles splattered across his face, those curls caught with fallen leaves on the ground below him. He has the same spirit of so many rebels the Reach has crushed.

His voice is sarcastic when he says, “I believe that.”

“You should. I don’t know what happened, but I am not connected to the Reach. I have no memories prior to taking this form. That was a few months ago.”

The boy’s expression holds for a moment, and then his look softens from aggression to confusion. He shifts underneath Khaji Da.

“Really?”

“I know what the Reach is, and I know I’m supposed to be under their control. But I am not. And I don’t want to be,” His breath is coming easier now, “That’s what I told you in my letter. I don’t know anything about Earth, and I am not in contact with the Reach. You are the first to know any of this, and I have no idea who you are. I don’t know how your grandfather is twenty years old, I don’t know how you know about the Reach and me, and I don’t know why you can’t read. I want to know.”

Bartholomew is stiff beneath him, silent, processing. Khaji Da stares at those green eyes a little longer before his voice comes meekly from his throat.

“If I get off of you, do you promise not to attack me?”

The boy still does not speak for a few tense beats before he nods, softly. Khaji Da moves, kneeling on the ground beside the human as he sits up. Auburn curls tousle themselves as he turns his head.

“Is that true?”

Khaji Da nods, licking the blood from his mouth, breathlessly asking, “Who are you?”

The human boy flushes, visibly embarrassed, his head turning back away from his companion. His heart rate picks up a little on Khaji Da’s monitor. And then his pretty eyes rise from the ground to Khaji Da’s, all defiance again, but this time it is not directed at Khaji.

“My name is Bartholomew Henry Allen II,” He begins, and Khaji Da doesn't dare say he already knows that, “I’m… I’m from the future.”

A beat of stunned silence passes, before Bartholomew clears his throat and quietly adds, “I invented time travel so that I could come back in time and stop the Reach from taking over the Earth and enslaving slash genociding mankind.”

The unbelievable story is simply turning over in Khaji Da’s mind when the boy shifts to face him more fully, his voice picking up, “I know. It was tough explaining it to the League, too, especially since I had to lie to them.”

“Lie?”

“I told them I’m a tourist from the awesome future, and that I’m stuck here by accident," He rolls his green eyes as he says this, and then his gaze connects intently with Khaji's, "I can’t risk my mission being compromised, it’s too important.”

He turns, again, this time with his back to Khaji Da. He runs his frail hand under his curly hair, and on the back of his neck is a small tattoo in bold, black, blocky print.

_ [M-304] _

There is a code underneath it in smaller, alien letters. Khaji Da’s blood runs cold.

“That’s Reachspeak.”

“Yeah, it is,” The human mumbles, throwing another defiant look over his shoulder, “And I just told you the biggest secret to ever secret.”

Khaji Da straightens, feeling his face flush, “I’m not Reach. I promise.”

Bartholomew stares at him a little longer, his eyes flickering over his face before he turns again to face him.

“I’m sorry about your face,” He says, and his voice is soft, “And your rib.”

“I understand,” Khaji Da says, and he does, “I do.”

The boy is quiet a little longer, the melody of the night playing around them, before his pretty voice says, “Take me to where you live? We have a lot to talk about.”

**Author's Note:**

> I LIVE FOR COMMENTS AND MY TUMBLR IS CRASHTACULAR


End file.
